The Boneflowers

The Boneflowers bloom once every thousand years. When they take root, a city dies.

"It does not dream, for it has never woken."

The Sleeper is not a god.
The Sleeper is not a machine.
The Sleeper is not one thing, but many.
It is other, yet it is same.

The last of humanity clings to existence on Khepri, a world long past its prime. Once a thriving bastion of art, science, and philosophy, it is now a graveyard city built upon the bones of its own dead. The sky is red with dust, the air thick with decay, and the Boneflower Trees stand at the city's heart, their roots sinking deep into the ruins.

No one knows where they came from.

Only that every thousand years, one person is chosen-sealed beneath the roots of the Boneflower, sacrificed so that the city may endure.

But the Boneflowers are more than just a ritual. They are a cycle. A mechanism that devours the living to sustain the dead. The city above does not thrive. It does not endure. It is a corpse being fed.

And now, so are you.